Manufacturing Books

Although I would not put Volume 3 in my first set of professional books, it would be in the second tier. This volume offers detailed design information necessary for selecting technology for compressors and heating and cooling. It is well beyond what is available from classroom textbooks so be prepared for the initial shock. This is not a quick-reference book! You will have to spend some time to extract the information from Ludwig's series, i.e., volumes 1-3. I find Coulson and Richardson an easier text to use everyday. If you want details on refrigeration cycles, this is the place to look after you've had a go at Coulson or Hicks (Standard Handbook of Engineering Calculations).

Although some of the information may be available on-line. You would need to spend days and weeks collecting it. Then, there are the worked out examples of calculations, just like Hicks (missing from Coulson), that are invaluable. The photos of equipment, the tables and charts are invaluable. You won't find complete step-by-step calculations, like Hicks, but you will find more challenging ones worked out in sufficient detail to write a spreadsheet for future use.

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This book and the companion volumes are some of the best tools available for process engieers in the design business. Ludwig has been able to capture a balance between the theory and the real world. An excellent application book highly illustrated and with excellent method summaries and examples.

I have about two hundred of book on chemical process design. For me this is one of the best book ever made on subject, with many examples. The target is mainly basic and petrochemical industries but also if you are interested in fine chemicals you will find what you are looking for.

I'm getting my masters in Architecture and this book is a must-have, must-read for anyone designing in the digital age. It's informational and inspiring not only for architects, but anyone interested in using computer technology as a method for design carried through to manufactuing.

We all know that information revolution has totally transformed the society. Architecture is no exception. Relative to industrial revolution's impact on architecture, "what has this recent revolution done to the field?" is the basic inquiry to the book. This book diligently answers to the question. It is extremely informative and provocative regarding digital technologies available for architecture.

As an outcome of a symposium held at U.Penn. in 2002, the book compiles various scholars and practitioners around the world. They grapple with the current technologies available to design and manufacture innovative shapes/forms/spaces that associate with digital aesthetics.

Spearheaded researchers such as Bill Mitchell(MIT), Chris Luebkeman(Arup), Ali Rahim (U.Penn), and Branko Kolarevic (U.Penn, chief editor of the book); and, cutting-edge practitioners such as Jim Glymph (Gehry), Hugh Whitehead (Foster & Partners), Bernhard Franken (Franken Architekten), etc.; both groups provide theoretical framework and actual applications.

It's interesting to point out that the authors deliberately associated digital architecture with smooth forms. Double curvatures deform structure/ skin/ space of the building. The new modes of design and production enables that complex geometries to be part of building industry.

As a reader, the most challenging claim of the book is that the authors
assert (some explicitly and some implicitly) on the new role of an architect. They believe that this new mode of production will revolutionize the client-architect-contractor relationship. Because architects will be the (single) dominant source of information on the three dimensionally morphed shape, manufacturers and fabricators would rely heavy on architects. The authors predict architect would regain absolute power of medieval master builders.

This book provides a great overview of the developing technolgies in digital design and fabrication. I would highly recommend this book to anyone interested in a comprehensive study in the current trends in digital architecture. A series of 20+ articles by designers working in this area of architecture, this book updates the conversation to what is happening today and what is being projected in the future. Great resource!

I have collected Barbies for many years and received this book as a gift. I thought it was wonderfully interesting to see many different artists' interpretation of Barbie and her influence on society. I haven't looked at the book for a few years, and I can still picture some of the images - Barbie swimming in French Fries (a play on American diet vs. Barbie's slim figure?) and many dolls watching a huge Barbie face on a movie screen (Is Barbie taking over the world? Should we be on the lookout for Big Barbie?). Overall, I agree that this is a fun coffee table book that would stimulate a lot of interesting conversation.

I enjoyed (and still enjoy) reading this book. The pictures are great and often amusing. This would be a great coffee table book.

As a lifelong Barbie fan, I must say- I love this book. It has something for everyone and you'll see something new every time you pick it up. This book is a must have for Barbie Collectors!

What was then called Just-in-Time is now Lean. Lots of the lingo has changed, but many of the core concepts have remained. Doc Hall's book captures some of the more subtle points that are missed today. This is a book that every lean leader should have read at some point. If you haven't, now's the time.

Robert Hall has scored a perfect 10 in terms of capturing JIT, TQM, Continuous Improvement, ERP all within the confines of one book. His style of writing is really absorbing. I was surprised to find that no one had written a review of this book. This book, if I recollect correctly, is a recommended reading for APICS's CRIM candidates. If you want to get a taste of all the proven manufacturing concepts and practices, then this book serves as a one-stop reading.

This is the finest, most practical and usable book I have ever read. Chapter 4 can be used to set up an entire factory with excellent results.

I set up a new factory using this book and reach proforma faster than I could believe.

I'm a shop foreman and I need to know A to Z about everything mechanical and how to fix it. This is the only book I could ever find with millwrights information in it and blacksmithing, but all I had was my dog-eared, ancient copy. Until now. Finally a new edition and none of the good material has been disturbed. This a must-have for every shop-every shop foreman.

I bought this book new about thirty years ago. It was $11 then, if I remember right. I ordered it from a catalog; amazon.com and home computers didn't exist. So the edition I am writing about is the one thirty years ago.

This book contains all the hints and kinks and even secrets about setting up machinery that you would normally have to learn by working with someone experienced who knows what he is doing.

The book touches on just about everything. The rigging section tells about how to take care of rope, how to tie knots, how to estimate the weight of something by lifting it with a pinch bar. There is a blacksmith section showing the tools used and some basic forging techniques.

There is a lot of discussion of power transmission, such as flat belts, V belts, shafts, bearings, couplings and such. It shows how to align an electic motor so that the pulleys on the motor and the machine will be in line with each other.

This is not a project book. It doesn't have plans on how to build something. But if you have a machine like a hammer mill, a lathe, an air compressor, a blower, a furnace, or whatever, big and mean, this book shows how to put a sling on it, lift it with a crane, move it, build a floor to put in on, put it where you want it, line it with other machines, put a motor on it, line up the pulleys to power it up, bolt it down, lubricate it, and even a little about how to build a roof over it.

You will have to have a big pocket to put this book in.

I wondered where the great Audel brand had gone until I saw this book, probably one of the most known books of all the old Audel's I have in my collector's library. Anyone who does anything with his hands, whether at home in the garage or on the shop floor should buy this book.

I am delighted to own this book, not only because it does a quite perfect job of listing every little piece which came with some of Barbie's early and Mod Era houses/cases/rooms, especially the rarer items, but because the photos are fantastic and fun - posing Barbie and her family/friends in these structures, in many of her wonderful period outfits, is simply genius! Demonstrating how to use some of these structures for displays of your collected Barbies, Marl creates a complete world in miniature. I was surprised to learn that the very old, cardboard furniture & structures designed for Barbie have withheld the ravages of time much better than many of the molded plastic furniture sets/houses from the late 60's/early 70's. An excellent book, and a must-have for the scene-designing Barbie collector!

If you collect vintage barbie dolls, you will also need vintage houses and furnitures to display your collection.

WOW!
This book helped me turn a trunk full of parts and pieces (That I thought was junk) into a dozen Sets . The excellent photos and parts listings are very helpful when you need to know what exactly came with any given set. This book covers Cardboard and plastic structures and sets for barbie and all her friends and family, an excellent book for any collector.

This is an outstanding book that should be read by policy makers, academics, activists and elected leaders. Great effort and job. This is the best book on the subject.

In a book that is essential to our appreciation of social inequality and class stratification in America, Edna Bonacich and Richard Appelbaum write Behind the Label: Inequality in the Los Angeles Apparel Industry. Basically, Behind the Label is an in depth study of the phenomenon of the proliferation of garment industry sweatshops in the Los Angeles area in. These sweatshops, Bonacich and Appelbaum et al argue, needs to be examined in relation to other factors: 1) the demise of American welfare, 2) the weakening of union involvement, and 3) juxtapose that to the globalization and caustic effect of "flexible production" (Bonacich 258).
In contrast to the bullish Thomas L. Friedman of The World is Flat fame, Bonacich and Appelbaum use the apparel industry in LA as a stark counterpoint to a neo-conservative economic framework and come up with an example of a Marxist inspired social scientific examination of the political economy (Bonacich 62). In this book, the manufacturers now have economic justifications to, at will, move production to wherever low-wage labor can be facilitated (Bonacich 56 - 57). Power, in this scenario, sits squarely in the hands of a cabal of powerful manufacturers and their comprador contractors. Unlike the high tech examples of Friedman - things are not getting better for these low tech workers, on the contrary, things are getting worse (Bonacich 180 - 181, and 196 - 199).
Manufacturers can substantially distance themselves from the sweatshops as they neither own them nor invest in them. The word is "plausible deniability" and manufacturers can deny working with sweatshops as they are buffered through contractual agreements only. Contractors serve as modern day middle man compradors (Bonacich 150 - 151). This distance protects the manufacturers and makes it difficult to call them account for the less than humane treatment of the lowest factory worker. In reality, the connection is direct and real. Manufacturers often, and Bonacich and Appelbaum posit, that manufacturer send a quality control representative - who comes almost on a daily basis - and can, and often do dictate delivery schedules.
With so much of the industry already moving south of the border, we are starting to see a sharp increase in imports of product into the United States and a decline in employment in local sites. Having said that how is it that there is still so much done in the LA area? Los Angeles is an enigma in that the industry continues to grow, is very resilient, and is, in effect, has become garment capital of America (Bonacich 36). One explanation is the ready supply of low-income immigrant (a mix of documented and undocumented) work force (Bonacich 189 - 190).
Behind the Label looks at the key group of actors in the L.A. apparel industry: manufacturers, contractors, retailers, and labor. Taken along each of these areas, Bonacich and Appelbaum evaluate and hope to ameliorate what they see as a disparity vis-à-vis wealth (Bonacich 115 - 126). Moreover, Bonacich and Appelbaum also take to account the role of government and the unions play in trying to get rid of sweatshops on the one hand while concurrently preventing the flight of jobs to places like Mexico and others that take the outsourcing (Bonacich 245 - 246). The book ends with a very interesting but idealistic adage of instituting more government controls and increase union involvement. Pretty much only the future knows what will happen.
Several questions come to mind, most which defy easy answers. Bonacich and Appelbaum et al are straightforward about their social agenda - that is to side with labor (Bonacich xi - xv). One has to wonder if their stated position colors or informs their analysis. Grounded on several interviews, statistical data, surveys, and ethnographic fieldwork (mostly participant observations), Bonacich and Appelbaum are careful not to seem flippant about the role of the manufacturers and contractors.
As a short backgrounder, 1965 was a watershed year for Asian immigration. Altering what began with the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, continuing on with the Gentlemen's Agreement of 1907, and on and on until the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, Asian immigration was either closed or limited. The opening up of immigration to about 20,000 per county per year regardless of area of origin had a tremendous impact on the demographic picture of the United States. Sender countries like India, Korea, and the Philippines flooded the embassies with request for visas on an occupational/skill preference grading system and later with family re-unification request that did not fall under the quota system. Mind you, this is was all facilitated not out of American altruism but rather on a "pull" basis that was needs driven and greased on a "push" system that was a "brain drain" to sender nations.
The rise in Asian immigration had a remarkable impact on the demographic picture of the United States (Bonacich 169 - 170). There were dramatic shifts in and around the mostly inner city areas - of which we see in an example like Los Angeles. In Los Angeles, we see an already evolved stratification that seems to conflate race with class in a mostly white Jewish manufacturing strata (Bonacich 31 - 44), a middle class mostly Korean and Chinese contractor segment (Bonacich 150 - 151), and mostly a poor and working class group of Mexicans and Southeast Asians (Bonacich 189 - 190). Bonacich and Appelbaum are all too ready to bring to presence the El Monte case of Thai laborers who were practically incarcerated in this prison like sweatshop scenario that is both heartbreaking but more importantly very telling of a class divide that is not just apparent, it is cultivated (Bonacich 141).
Bonacich et al pen an interesting and compelling anecdote of the authors need to purchase a dress for a dinner/fund raiser dance for Jonathan Bernstein that raised a whopping $300,000 and cost Bonacich $300.00 for a dress that she seemed ill at ease to select and wear (115). Juxtaposed to this spectacle of extravagance was a yarn that marked Bonacich's involvement in a discussion with contractors and unions of which she was later treated like a pariah (Bonacich 123). The juxtaposition, I argue, is no coincidence. On the one had, one sees extravagance. On the other hand, we see abject poverty looking for spaces of resistance and justice. What is really more telling is that at the top of end of the food chain we see millionaires who are all too willing to donate to philanthropic causes (in an effort not to be seen as exploitive) but are also all too willing to keep wages below an "acceptable living" wage as demanded by ideological capitalism - it is all about efficiencies really. The race to the bottom is on (Bonacich 159).
There were also some curious but unanswered issues: there are no African Americas in the entire gamut and there is no discussion of gay and lesbian involvement in the industry. With so many African Americas in and around the LA area - and by far some of the most prolific consumers of fashion, why are there so few or actually no African Americas in the manufacturing process (Bonacich 172)? Moreover, with such a representation of gays and lesbians in the industry, why are they not included in the discussion? I find no speculative answer in the book nor do I wish to venture a guess.
Juxtaposing this book with Thomas Friedman's The World is Flat reveals that arguably Friedman is too bullish on the trends he outlines. Both books are clearly written from an American Rashomon or point of view but Behind the Label is clearly on side of labor and The World is Flat is clearly on side of capital. While Friedman is a reporter for the New York Times and Bonacich is a professor of Sociology at the University of California, Riverside - their respective backgrounds clearly influenced the writing of their books. Once could conceivably argue that there is no one size fits all in globalization studies and that Los Angeles (U.S.) or Ciudad Juarez (Mexico) is not Bangalore (India) and vice versa. Welcome to the new economic world order of 2008.

Miguel Llora

"Los Angeles is now the apparel manufacturing center of the United States" (page 16). 2,900 sewing companies work in LA for the 185 firms. Sadly, the apparel manufactureres use sweatshops.

According to Dr. Bonacich and Dr. Appelbaum, a "sweatshop" is a factory that fails to pay a living wage and does nto allow a worker to purchase a house and health care(page 11). Sadly, workers make less than the poverty line of $7,200 a year. Hence, concerned citizens like us wonder how sweatshops come to be and exist?

Again, according to Dr. Bonacich and Dr. Appelbaum, sweatshops are caused by 1) a high turnover in styles (14), 2) low tech tools, such as sewing machines, 3) the neglect of union representation, 4) cheap start-ups in other countries, 5) cheap labor, and 6) bossy retailers. The authors write, "Thousands of contractors can produce small lots rapidly. The city's industry is primed for the production of fashion at cheap prices" (p. 18). Thus, Los Angeles is the "sweatshop capital of the U.S" (p. 19).

A city of sweatshops is not a healthy city. ""Polarization is destructive to society." A Chinese person making $25.00 a month cannot afford $100 pair of shoes" (p. 24). Furthermore, immigrants do not have access to politicians, since wealthy people can buy lobbyists and call the govenor and threaten to move the industry. 2.9 million Angelinos make less than $20,000 yr.

The solution to sweatshops is to spread the cost-cutting activities in every area of apparel manufacturing. "Yet cost cutting is never aimed at the executives professionals or profits." As a result, "the garment industry is a throwback to the earliest phases of the industrial revolution" (p. 14).

I hope the supervisors in the valuable garment industry read this fine book.

Hopefully this will come out in second edition. We need to read how these stories go on! Good anthropology!

This is an amazing book. It is eloquently written, engaging and insightful...one of the best books out there on Indonesian textiles and their recent transformations. Collectors, scholars and students alike will find this book one of their favorites. I've assigned this book in classes and students love it--they tell me it is one they will keep on their shelves. I agree--it is a keeper!

Reads like a novel, but is also scholarly. This is a really unique ethnography! My students have loved it. Highly recommended for scholars, textile people, and Indonesia enthusiasts. Great writing, ethnographic details, and up close descriptions of the lives of an amazing range of characters from a "traditional" eastern Indonesian culture in modern times. The chapter about the intersections of cultures in Bali is priceless and would make a good film. By the end of the book, I felt like I knew the main characters and wanted their stories to go on. Good anthropology!

As an up-and-coming successful toy inventor, I thought this book was excellent. I have read a few others, but I found that this one inspired the most ideas. Del Vecchio's matrixes are a great tool for idea generation (or the checking of your ideas). Buy it and read it.

GENE DEL VECCIO'S BOOK ON THE BLOCKBUSTER TOY IS EASY TO READ, HOLDS INTEREST, AND SUPPLIES A HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE, AS WELL AS A CONCEPTUAL PERSPECTIVE, OF TOYS PROBABLY NOT FOUND ANYWHERE ELSE. IT SHOULD BE OF INTEREST TO ANY MANUFACTURER OR MARKETER OF PRODUCTS FOR KIDS (NOT JUST TOYS), AND OTHER MARKETING PRACTITIONERS, FOR THAT MATTER.

Gene Del Vecchio's new book, The Blockbuster Toy-How to Invent the Next Big Thing, provides penetrating insights and well- honed experiences. His awareness helps to clarify the puzzle of creating a successful product from many complex dimensions.
The book is well written. It provides the vantage point of history, popularity, culture and values to show "playmakers" what works, what does not, and why.This book is a must read, providing valuable guidance for every "playmaker" and everyone in the business-from inventors to manufacturers and sellers.
You will be able to compare the experiences you have had with the products discussed that can be measured against his sensible and practical guidance.Perhaps more "playmakers" will ponder the fact that many successful toys were created not for fame and fortune, but instead for the love and laughter of children-basic values that have been superseded by avaricious investors and the eager quest for the "hot toy." The many concrete examples present classic icons that surpass time and trends and remain perennially, "Evergreen." There is a lot of value in understanding the essential components that make for success and to use his principles for careful study.
Who knows what will become the next "Furby" or "Teddy." Meanwhile read this book to get inspiration,knowledge and the map and compass before you venture forth.

This book gives a very good insight into the history of Brunschwig & Fils and a very good addition to the library of anyone interested in Interior Design and decoration. There are some very good pictures with descriptions. There is also an interesting chapter on the making of fabric. I buy many books on interior decoration and one this was definitely worth buying for me. Heather Szczepanski

Murray Douglas is a scholar of historical design. She is keenly aware of the importance of using contempory trends to compliment culturally historic design. The book becomes a resource not only of the history of Brunschwig & Fils and its textiles, trims and wall coverings, but of how well-known designers have integrated the Brunschwig line with their own flair and client's needs. She gives a useful history of the manufacture and use of textiles, trims and wallpapers. Douglas and Irvine tell the story of McLean's photographs as they create a pallette of comfort and style with color and sophistication. I use the book as a text and photo resource for all of my design projects!

Murray Douglas is a scholar of historical design. She is keenly aware of the importance of using contempory trends to compliment culturally historic design. The book becomes a resource not only of the history of Brunschwig & Fils and its textiles, trims and wall coverings, but of how well-known designers have integrated the Brunschwig line with their own flair and client's needs. She gives a useful history of the manufacture and use of textiles, trims and wallpapers. Douglas and Irvine tell the story of McLean's photographs as they create a pallette of comfort and style with color and sophistication. I use the book as a text and photo resource for all of my design projects!